INTERNATIONAL WAREHOUSES

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hello the community,

i would like to address the issue of international shipping rates for customers here at massdrop and would like to put some feelers out about wether massdrop should/would consider creating a european warehouse for easier shipping and import tax rates for it's international customers

i am sure that this subject has been raised many times within the community and i only decided to create this thread after having to pay nearly a quarter of the price of my item (sennheiser HD6XX) on import taxes and shipping rates

massdrop in general maybe one of the best all round ideas for managing to get discounts online and it's idea of getting a number of garunteed buyers in order to get a reduced rate for products is outstanding the main problem is that it only really benefits people in it's home country of the USA the rest of us consumers are left with the headache of having to deal with our countries import taxes and VAT charges meaning that in most cases we save little to nothing when making a purchase

now obviously it is not massdrops fault how our own countries fleece us in regards to import taxes and they do even warn us that we may well incur charges but this means little if the whole fact of getting a discount on an item is taken away by these very same restrictions then it would seem almost pointless selling to intertnational customers and they would be better off just selling to USA customers only

now i do not know who dictates which shipping companies are used for the buisness but please can massdrop not ever use DHL they are by far the most reliable but also most expensive company to ever ship a parcell overseas and again this is detremental to their international customers who incur DHL's humongous price hike reliability comes at a stiff price so it seems but they are not the only company out there who ship overseas and i would like to see maybe different carriers used depending on what part of the world the item is shipping to

so i am hoping people will read this thread and comment and maybe we can get a real discussion going which may or may not lead to something positive as after my first transaction with the company has left me with a most bitter taste in my mouth and this really should not be the case

Though i have been many times disatisfyed from DHL policy and i was obligated by them to pay highly additional custom fees i think dhl commerse is a way to avoid all the added custom fees in foreign countries or not?

I mean i live in Athens Greece amd despite the fact that many orders off mine were up to 200$ no additional custom taxes were added there...but anyway its true that DHL sucks...

thank you alexandros for your comment it is so true if i had been given the choice i would never have chosen DHL as my choice of shipping agent all the additional fees they add are ridiculous in comparrisson to other couriers

Like others have said, the additional costs incurred for more property and employees to pull this off would have to be covered somehow. No well-run company in their right minds would simply absorb these costs if they could get away with having consumers pay for them via increased prices before shipping.

So you either keep the current model where the base prices are low and shipping/import fees vary according to the customer's location, or the base prices go up to accommodate the new changes and you pay for shipping only. Seems like a ton of work for very little benefit, to be honest.

I'm sure Massdrop has considered these exact ideas and determined it to be less profitable to do something like this. Not to mention the headaches of new logistics that would no doubt go through some growing pains before becoming efficient and finely tuned. This is one of those things where you have to be careful what you wish for.

Hey, I'm majoring in accounting and I understand some of these things! So let's see if I can explain some of it. The 16/17 million number you quoted was their ESTIMATED REVENUE for the past twelve months, not company profits/net income. That means it takes into account all the sales that Massdrop has made on the site and none of the expenses like utilities, wages, shipping, insurance, rent, and supplies expense that are ACTUALLY PAYING THE VENDORS FOR THE PRODUCTS. I made an emphasis for the supplies expense because we don't know their margin for everything being sold on this site so they could be barely making ends meet or they could be rolling in a lump(not a mountain, mind you) of money. I'd fathom a guess that their actual net income would be substantially smaller.

Second, while 70 employees can be seen as a large number, I'd consider it a small number due to the fact that they're a company that ships internationally. I would even fathom a guess that a sizeable portion of the employees are for QC and shipping for the thousands of items they receive and ship out on a weekly basis. With that said, 40 hours-a-week work schedule means that their wages expense is over $1.2M if everyone was earning minimum wage of 8.44/hour (which is a very slim possibility) which cuts into their income. Quite a few of the major European countries have even higher minimum wages.

I do understand that having to pay extra for an item when others buying the same item are exempt from it makes you feel slightly cheated. I get pissed when I buy things online since I live in California which has the highest state sales tax rate in the country when some people in other states have little to no sales tax.(God damn it Amazon laws!) We're not saying that Massdrop shouldn't care about international customers. What we're saying is that trying to force a company into accruing extra fixed expenses could spell the downfall of it.

thanks for your reply mate...yes i understand perfectly the whole expenses to profit margins which we can only really speculate on in these comments and i certainly do not blame massdrop for my countries decision on import taxes as massdrop have nothing whatsoever to do with that at all,i would like to see more options for shipping though as i always feel ripped off whenever i have to deal with DHL although their service is excellent we the customer have to pay an extorsionate ammount for this very same service adding options maybe would certainly go a long way to helping the international customer save a penny or two as the whole point of this company is about making savings which actually mean something, if by the end of the sale i am left not only waiting for almost 6 months for the product but then have to also pay almost as much after taxes and shipping fees as i would have if i ahd purchased the product from source or another site like amazon then the whole point of saving money is moot, this has actually got me thinking that maybe there is a market here in the UK and europe for this type of site for us seperate from massdrop altogether as there are more than enough european companies who make awesome tech products that there should be enough product to make it happen...Mmmmm

The issue I see is that Massdrop would still have to have it shipped to their HQ. Where they do QC and what not, then they would have to pay to have it shipped to another warehouse (you hope in Europe) which adds additional cost which would have to be rolled into the price for you and other European Massdrop users. So shipping would end up being less for you but the product would cost more? I don't know. Not to mention who would pay the customs/import fees then? Another additional cost the company should just absorb? This would all increase your price resulting in the same situation you currently have.

I feel for all of you that have to pay ridiculous import and shipping fees.

thank you for your reply, we'll i would expect Massdrop to also have staff with the ability to do QC at this or any other location reducing the double shipping cost then all it needed after that is a little common sense in the logistics department in regards to where the items are being built to where they are shipped its not rocket science you know if a product is produced in europe leave the Europe orders in Europe at the European warehouse pretty simple solution

It's easy to say that it's a simple solution but the implementation would be quite costly. I'd assume that Massdrop's margins are already dirt low on most products that they sell so it's not like they have a lot of leeway on how much they can comfortably spend on getting a whole new warehouse and a full-time staff set up there. Once Europe gets a warehouse going, you know Asia and Canada will start demanding for a warehouse for them as well.

Also, are you using an alt account? The 6XX doesn't show up under your drops.